The streets of Denmark's second city Aarhus are full of clues that this is a climate-conscious country. Bottle recycling machines greet pedestrians at regular intervals; bike paths are teeming with cyclists in rain or shine — often with kids or cargo in tow; and out in the bay where the Kattegat connects the Baltic and North Seas, turbines help generate more wind power per person than almost any other country in the world.

It was here that the Nordic nation chose to launch its six-month stint heading up the EU Council, the body representing the bloc's 27 national governments.

And a word that's fallen out of vogue in European policy-making circles made the cut in Denmark's stated priorities: "Green."

"There's a lot at stake," Climate and Energy Minister Lars Aagaard told DW as Denmark's EU presidency kicked off.

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Gone are the days when climate policies dominated the European Union's agenda; when school climate strikers demonstrating in towns and cities across the bloc prompted policymakers to come up with the so-called Green Deal, dubbed Europe's "man on the moon moment" by the EU Commission back in 2018.

Since then, the realities of radically shifting geopolitics have swung like a wrecking ball onto Europe's political consciousness — from Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the resulting energy and inflation crisis, to US President Donald Trump's tariffs and mounting existential fears in European industries from car-making to chemicals.

Green parties lost out in most countries in last year's European elections after what many analysts dubbed a backlash against green policies.

The EU's big promises to slash........

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